ASCI 530 – Unmanned Systems

Module 7 – Systems Development and Test & Evaluation (T&E)

Activity 7.4 – Assignment: Request for Proposal – RFP

Jingwen Cai

RobinRobin, is a fire drone, or a UAS that is designed for natural disaster such as wild fire is proposed in this paper. This will include overview of design considerations, decisions for derived request including transportability, cost, air vehicle frame, control and command, pay load and data-link. Test requirement and verification schedule is also included.

UAS  development has sequential phases listed below. Some overlap and splashback may exists between phases. Formal review and approval by the user and management is at the end of the most phases before the beginning of the next phases to ensure it meet the requirement and avoid the risk. This is called “passport” at some design company because without the passport, the project can’t be forwarded to the next phase.

Table 1, RobinRobin UAS project flows based on the “selecting a development approach”, 2005.

	Project Phases	Time	Principles
1	Initial Investigation	3 months	Focus on market research and user’s requirement
2	Requirement Definition	1 month	Clear objectives and agreement with stakeholders
3	System Design	2 month	Focused on developing  engineering specification
4	Coding, testing, DFMEA	4 month	Small scale mock-ups, ground testing, inflight testing,
5	Implementation	4 month	Based on the prototype, then large scale with learnings
6	Operation & Support	2 years	Real time support, training and technical transfer

From the initial investigation, RobinRobin UAS will fulfill some basic requirements as outlined below:

·         Day and night operations

·         High temperature tolerance

·         Various altitude operation

·         Hover at a certain spot for a certain time to do surveillance and putting off fire

·         Real time surveillance and feedback for fire and ground situation to ground station

·         Large capacity to carry and spray chemicals to extinguish fires

Translate these requirement into technical language, we can list these into system design requirement

·         Radius of action is defined as the maximum distance that the RobinRobin can travel away from the base with payload and return to base after the mission without refueling. Users asked for 5 miles because it is a safe distance for the ground operation from a wild fire zone.

·         The endurance at the radius of action is largely based on the payload and fuel amount.

·         Payload and aircraft frame shall be able to provide information on the location of the fire edge, the intensity and location of hotspots

·         Can “see” through the smokes.

·         Communication shall be compactable to those helicopters, air-tankers, ground station.  It shall send the fire and ground situation to the manned aircraft and commanders.

The low level requirement for RobinRobin is listed as below:

·         Cost

o   The budget cap is $20,000 each for hardware only, not including the training, maintenance, and operation cost.

o   Off shelf component shall be the first choice to reduce the cost

o   The cost for pilot license, flight plan approval cost, and other FAA required permit doesn’t included here.

·         Aircraft Vehicle

o   Shall be capable of flight up to 500 feet altitude above ground level (AGL)

o   Shall be capable of flight two hours without refueling

o   Shall be capable of covering an operational radius of 5 miles

o   Shall be deployable and on station in less than 10 minutes

o   Shall provide capture of telemetry, including altitude, magnetic heading, latitude position, longitude position and orientation

o   Shall be capable for Vertical launching and landing

o   Shall have Power plant that do not have risks of fuel burning or leaking at the fire zone

o   Shall have the material on the outside surface with heat resistant coating every where

o   Shall be capable to carry the payload of five kilograms

·         Control and command

o   Shall provide wireless radio or satellite communication with ground station

o   Shall have the capability to detect and avoid other manned aircraft

o   Shall have capacity to be operated at line of sight in case the radio signal or satellite communication doesn’t work in remote regions

·         Payload

o   Electronic sensor that can “see” through smoke to detect people or animal on the ground

o   hot spot and provide GPS coordinate of the hot spot

o   Shall be capable of carrying and spraying a small amount of fire distinguisher that is enough to kill the fire with 10 feet diameter to save lives if other airplanes are not available.

o   All payload shall have fire protection coating

·         Datalink

o   Shall use power provided by air vehicle element

o   Shall be capable of communicate with the ground station with the range of five miles.

o   Shall be capable to send real time pictures of hot spots and their GPS coordinates to the ground control station

o   Shall have

o  

·         Transportability

o   The entire system shall be transportable in a hardened case with the size fit in a regular van or large four wheel drive truck

o   The total weight including the payload shall be less than 100 lb, assuming two people can carry and move the case.  

Testing:

·         Reliability

o   Each subsystem shall be tested separately.

o   Although Bell 407 is a mature helicopter with more than 1, 400 airframes produced and over 4 million flight hours, the modified and minimized version of Bell 407 shall be treated as a new platform that need both ground test and in-flight test.

·         Ground test:  5000 hours is required and failure rate is less than 10%

·         In-flight test: 5000 hours is required and failure rate is less than 1%.

·         Environmental test

o   Different altitude to simulate the mountain area or seal level

o   Shall have the capacity to fly in the hot Desert area,

o   Shall have the capacity of stable flying through high wind area

o   Shall have the capacity to fly through dense smoke area with constant communication to the ground station at the same time.  Less than 5% glitches or dropped communication in this test is allowed. 

·         Launching and retrieving rate

o   Shall meet 10 minutes requirement from opening the case to the RobinRobin get airborne.

o   Shall allow only two people to operate the launching and retrieving during the test, without any helpers or tools that is not included in the design

In summary, the RobinRobin is a new affordable fire scout and fire extinguisher that helps experts to detect, control, and extinguish wild fires and save lives.  It has capacity to see through the smoke, provide location of hot spots, and drop chemicals at small area if needed. It is easy to operate and only need two people to operate.  The development phase is 14 months minimum, and with ongoing operation support and large volume production in the coming years.